A review by neilrcoulter
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Alexander Freed

3.0

In a kinder universe, [Jyn] would have walked away from Scarif. I cannot imagine who she would have become, but I think she would have been extraordinary.

I am grateful I knew her, no matter how short the time. (322)

I completely agree with Mon Mothma's concluding words about Jyn Erso: I am glad she was created and glad to have even just a couple of hours of Rogue One to get to know her.

I love the film. Before seeing it, I'd read James Luceno's excellent prelude novel, Catalyst, which was almost required preparation for the movie. And then we saw the movie twice in the theater, which is a rarity for us. And still I wanted more. What amazed me was the powerful emotional arc the movie builds for Cassian and for Jyn, in the space of only one movie. In addition, the look, the feel, the relatively understated acting . . . the whole tone of the movie is perfect. The only thing lacking is the music, though Michael Giacchino's score does have a few high points.

In order to return to Rogue One's world (and also because I've become embarrassingly obsessive about reading every book in the new Star Wars canon), I checked out Alexander Freed's novelization from the library. When I was a kid, I loved movie novelizations. I read the original Star Wars novelizations over and over, along with Indiana Jones, Tron, Back to the Future, and others. I don't read them very often these days, but for Star Wars I'll make an exception. One thing that I enjoyed in those movie tie-ins was how the novels would sometimes include things that weren't in the movies, or show things from a slightly different perspective.

In this case, knowing that Rogue One had a lot of reshoots, and that perhaps there was a lot of material that didn't make the final cut, I hoped for a lot of new material. There is some, but nothing especially significant. Conversations that extend just a little further than in the movie, motivations and thoughts explained with more clarity. But in general, this book is simply a novelized form of the movie. Because this is Alexander Freed, however, who previously triumphed with his Battlefront: Twilight Company book, the writing is very good. And even though the book is not much more than just the story of the movie, it's nice to be able to enjoy that story at a somewhat slower pace.

One extra bit that I particularly enjoyed was the series of memos between Galen Erso, his engineering supervisor, and Krennic, which shows how Galen was allowed to incorporate the reactor core weakness into the Death Star. Brilliant and hilarious!

Anything that extends the time I get to spend with Jyn is welcome. I love her and I love Rogue One. Thanks to Lucasfilm/Disney for selecting your two best Star Wars authors (Luceno and Freed) to take care of the Rogue One writing. That's made a great movie even better.